I have stumbled across the recent studies including Antibiotics and vitamins that appear to have reduced recurrence rates.

Has anyone else heard of this?

My wife was DX 6/29/2018 stage2b tnbc with several lymph nodes involvement. I have been worried about recurrence since it seems to be common with this type of cancer.

The few articles I read concerning this seems relatively safe taking 200mg daily two weeks before surgery. followed by large doses of vitamin C. (this article states 12 weeks, however I have seen other articles stating two weeks before surgery)

Please let me know your thoughts.

Cancer stem cells, which fuel the growth of fatal tumours, can be knocked out by a one-two combination of antibiotics and Vitamin C in a new experimental strategy, published by researchers at the University of Salford, UK.

The antibiotic, Doxycycline, followed by doses of ascorbic acid (Vitamin C), were surprisingly effective in killing the cancer stem cells under laboratory conditions, according to the research published in the journal Oncotarget.

In boxing terms, this would be the equivalent of two blows delivered in rapid succession; a left-hand jab, followed by a right cross.

The researchers say their method offers a new explanation for how to prevent cancer cells from becoming treatment-resistant and how combinations therapies can be developed to overcome drug resistance.

Professor Michael Lisanti, who designed the study, explained: "We now know that a proportion of cancer cells escape chemotherapy and develop drug resistance; we established this new strategy to find out how they do it.

"We suspected the answer lay in the fact that certain cancer cells -- which we call metabolically flexible -- are able to switch their fuel source. Thus, when the drug treatment reduces the availability of a particular nutrient, the flexible cancer cells can feed themselves with an alternative energy source."

This new combination approach prevents cancer cells from changing their diet (metabolically inflexible), and effectively starves them, by preventing them from using any other available types of bio-fuels.

The team at the University of Salford's Biomedical Research Centre, added Doxycycline in ever increasing doses over a three-month period, to induce metabolic inflexibility. The result was to leave the cancer cells alive, but severely attenuated and depleted, so that they would be much more susceptible to starvation, by a second metabolic "punch."

First, the researchers inhibited the tumour cell mitochondria, by restricting the cancer cells only to glucose as a fuel source; then, they took away their glucose, effectively starving the cancer cells to death.

"In this scenario, Vitamin C behaves as an inhibitor of glycolysis, which fuels energy production in mitochondria, the "powerhouse" of the cell, explained co-author Dr Federica Sotgia.

The Salford team recently showed Vitamin C to be up to ten times more effective at stopping cancer cell growth than pharmaceuticals such as 2-DG, but they say that when Vitamin C is combined with an antibiotic, it is up to ten times more effective, making it nearly 100 times more effective than 2-DG.

As Doxycycline and Vitamin C are both relatively non-toxic, this could dramatically reduce the possible side-effects of anti-cancer therapy.

The Salford team also identified eight other drugs that could be used as a "second-punch" after the antibiotic regime, including berberine (a natural product) -- and a number of cheap non-toxic FDA approved drugs.

Professor Lisanti added: "This is further evidence that Vitamin C and other non-toxic compounds may have a role to play in the fight against cancer.

"Our results indicate it is a promising agent for clinical trials, and a as an add-on to more conventional therapies, to prevent tumour recurrence, further disease progression and metastasis."

Replies: Posted By: JenAus01
Date Posted: Oct 07 2018 at 1:08am

Hi Ronnie, that's a great article you have found. After reading it I also found this article from the same University research dated 2018. How these are related to TNBC, I'm not sure, but in Australia you are generally given antibiotics after surgery, of which I had a course immediately after. I also take Vit. C daily both in a homemade blueberry juice and supplements. I started taking this after reading another article, which sadly I can no longer find.

Below is the 2018 article.

Antibiotic effective in first breast cancer clinical trial

Tuesday 2 October 2018

SCIENTISTS fighting cancer have carried out the first successful trial of the effects of the antibiotic Doxycycline on cancer reoccurrence in patients after surgery.

Breast cancer patients were given the orally-administered antibiotic for 14 days before surgery and almost all saw a significant drop in cancer stem cells, the aggressive cells that drive tumour recurrence.

Although small – restricted to 15 patients at the University Hospital in Pisa, Italy – the trial is highly significant, giving hope for the efficacy of cheap, over-the-counter drugs being used alongside standard treatments to prevent cancer regrowth.

Doxycycline is one of the most commonly-prescribed antibiotics, effective in treating pneumonia, sinusitis, chlamydia, syphilis,cholera and Lyme disease.

10p per day

The research, https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fonc.2018.00452/abstract" rel="nofollow - reported in the journal Frontiers in Oncology , was led by Professors Michael Lisanti and Federica Sotgia at the University of Salford and supported by the Healthy Life Foundation, the Pisa Science Foundation and the Foxpoint Foundation.

Lisanti, chair of translational medicine, said: “We have very few FDA-approved drugs to target and reduce cancer stem cells, so to find that a drug that is effective, readily-available and costs just 10 pence per patient per day and is highly significant, particularly as around two-thirds of cancer deaths occur due to recurrence after initial treatment.”

The University of Salford specialises in discovering non-toxic remedies and repurposing approved drugs as complementary treatments for cancer.

In the trial, doxycycline was administered to 9 patients whilst a further 6 were observed as ‘controls’ (no treatment). Immuno-histochemical analysis was performed with known biomarkers of “stemness”(CD44, ALDH1), mitochondrial mass (TOMM20), cell proliferation (Ki67, p27),apoptosis (cleaved caspase-3) and neo-angiogenesis (CD31). For each patient,the analysis was performed both on pre-operative specimens (core-biopsies) and surgical specimens.

Near 70% success

Post-doxycycline tumour samples demonstrated a statistically significant decrease in CD44 - between 17.65% and 66.67%, in 8 out of 9 patients treated. One patient showed a rise inCD44, by 15%. Overall, this represents a positive response rate of nearly 90%.Similar results were also obtained with ALDH1, another marker of stemness.

“What we infer here is that the stem cells selectively over-express key mitochondrial-related proteins, which means that if we can inhibit mitochondrial function we can disrupt the stem cells,” explained Prof Sotgia.

Because mitochondria evolved from bacteria, they explain, many classes of antibiotics including Doxycycline actually target mitochondria and inhibit the reproduction of stem cells. These latest observations, they say, are further evidence that mitochondria are both biomarkers and potential drug targets.

Professor Lisanti added: “Our ability to treat cancer can only be enhanced by utilising drugs that are not only cheap but also widely available. Since Doxycycline first became clinically available in 1967, its anti-cancer activity has been right under our nose, for more than 50 years.”